CHAPTER XII 
THE PART PLAYED BY DAYLIGHT SAVING 
How “City Farmers” Were Enabled to Take Time by the Forelock 
B ECAUSE of the Daylight Saving Law war gar- 
dens added far more to the nation’s food supply 
in the season of 1918 than would have been pos- 
sible otherwise. This law was in operation during seven 
months of the year, from the last Sunday in March 
until the last Sunday in October. The impetus which 
this gave to the movement and the material gain re- 
sulting therefrom were almost inestimable. That the 
measure increased by many millions of dollars the 
value of the food grown is undoubted. 
An idea of what this extra hour of daylight meant 
to the war gardeners of the country may be gathered 
from the actual amount of working time it presented 
as a free gift to the home food producers. This extra 
hour given each afternoon to the war gardener meant 
a total of 182 hours during seven months of twenty- 
six working days each. Multiplying this figure by 
the number of war gardeners in the United States— 
5,285,000— it gives the stupendous aggregate of 
961,870,000 hours of time, or 329,407 years of eight- 
hour days. 
More than 300,000 years were thus added to this 
one industry alone by a single piece of legislation, laws 
similar to which had been adopted by fifteen other 
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